Also note that if you do not explicitly specify a ...

# announcements

[diesieben07]

Also note that if you do not explicitly specify a type, your val's and method return types can have those platform types, too, delaying the null check!. In your case, val y is inferred to have type String!, you can assign it to both String and String?. If you do the former, you will get a null check. If you pass y to a Java method again, you will again, not get a null check, which is what I think is going on in your Mockito example.